Battlefield 3 might be a no-show on Steam

Oh boy. After Crysis 2, could Battlefield 3 also give Steam the cold shoulder? Joystiq says things are looking looking that way. The site could find no trace of Steam in EA's list of digital retailers that will carry Battlefield 3 after the game ships on October 25.

The link to the list in question admittedly points to a 404 page right now, so perhaps this is all just a misunderstanding. One would certainly hope so. The screenshot grabbed by the folks at Planet Battlefield looks pretty damning, though; it shows a very exhaustive-looking list of retailers (from Origin and Direct2Drive in North America to Carrefour in France) without a trace of Steam in sight.

Considering Crysis 2 purportedly vanished from Steam over something as silly as DLC distribution, Battlefield 3 being a no-show doesn't seem like such a stretch—nor does it sound like a pleasing prospect. Whether the fault lies with EA or Valve, I'd be much happier if the two companies could resolve their differences and avoid making life difficult for their customers. I don't want to use different digital distribution services for different games, and no amount of bait-and-switching is going to make me hate EA's Origin service any less.